Stability of young children's attachment representations: Influence of children's and caregiver's characteristics

• Security and disorganization were not stable but developed in childhood.
• Continuous attachment scores revealed different aspects of attachment stability.
• Children's and caregiver's characteristics could influence the children's attachment stability.
• Low level of externalizing behavior influences the growth curve of disorganization.
• Language abilities play a role in the completion of the ASCT.

This research explores the stability of attachment representations, assessed by the Attachment Story Completion Task, within early childhood. Hypotheses were also formed about the influence of parenting, externalizing behavior and intelligence quotient (IQ) on the developmental course of children's attachment representations. Data were collected from 358 French-speaking Belgian children. Security and disorganization showed a linear improvement with age. The effect of time on the two growth curves was influenced by the child's externalizing behavior. When language abilities were controlled for in a subsample of referred children for externalizing behavior, the growth in security was found to be influenced by reasoning IQ, but the effects for disorganization were unchanged. The implications of the results for both research and clinical purposes are discussed.